/ Morbidly beautiful cadaverous cutie / glamour ghoul pin-up, part two : actress Gloria Holden (1903 - 1991), unforgettable as a lesbianic vampiress in the lead role in Dracula’s Daughter (1936) /Lobotomy Room (my monthly punkabilly booze party! Wild! Wild! Wild!) is, of course, usually located in the subterranean Bamboo Lounge in the basement of Fontaine’s. That was reserved for a private party this night, so I moved upstairs to the plush Art Deco splendour of the ground-floor bar with the silver-painted palm trees. Although the lighting was dark and Fontaine’s was decorated for Halloween, it still felt like I was dragging the elegant 1930s surroundings down to my putrid level. The only downside to re-locating upstairs: I couldn't project my usual vintage erotica

/ Morbidly beautiful cadaverous cutie / glamour ghoul pin-up, part three: Carroll Borland (1914 - 1994) as Luna Mora, eerily silent vampire daughter of Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) in horror movie classic Mark of The Vampire (1935). As Luna in her trailing white funeral shroud, Borland created the archetype of the sexy female vampire, paving the way for everyone from Morticia Addams,Vampira , Lily Munster and Elvira. She also may well have been the original goth! /

I didn’t particularly market this Lobotomy Room as a Halloween party (for one thing, Fontaine’s already had a Halloween-themed night lined-up for Halloween proper the following night). But how could I miss the opportunity to exhume a couple of kitsch atomic-era Halloween novelty songs? I played two tunes by campy 1950s horror movie hostess Tarantula Ghoul (well, the A side and B side of her only single!). In a just world, Ghoul’s “Graveyard Rock” would be celebrated as a Halloween perennial just like Boris Pickett’s “Monster Mash” (which I brought and totally intended to play – but forgot!). No one can resist the theme tunes from TV’s The Addams Family (those finger snaps!) and The Munsters (that twangy surf guitar!). I also dug up some macabre tittyshaker instrumentals with blood-curdling screaming and groaning (“Rigor Mortis” by The Gravestone Four, “It” by The Regal-aires). Playing something by The Cramps – The Addams Family / Munsters of punk and a band for whom every day was Halloween – was obviously compulsory. (To embrace the spirit of things, I also wore the Vampira t-shirt I bought at Viva Las Vegas in April 2015).

/ Morbidly beautiful cadaverous cutie / glamour ghoul pin-up, part four: Tarantula Ghoul. Like Vampira before her and Elvira afterwards, Ghoul provided campy comedic introductions to horror films as the macabre Morticia Addams-like hostess of her weekly TV show called House of Horror (1957-1959) in Portland, Oregon. Sadly no footage of her show survives, but backed by The Gravediggers, Ghoul cut one immortal Halloween novelty single in her brief heyday: "Graveyard Rock" / "King Kong" /Otherwise I aimed to keep things characteristically weird’n’sleazy. As per usual, I worked in my “chicken suite”, desperate rhythm and blues, foreign language cover versions (I’ve had a CD by vivacious Brazilian 1960s pop siren Wanderléa for years from when I used to have a Brazilian boyfriend. I don’t know why I’ve never used it DJ’ing. I love her berserk Portuguese-language rendition of Ike and Tina’s “River Deep Mountain High”. It’s so wrong it’s right) and some cooing 1960s “white girl with problems” singers via the cinema of Kenneth Anger, John Waters and David Lynch. In honour of what would have been the recent 70th birthday of The Queen Mutha of us all, I played a track by Divine (19 October 1945 – 7 March 1988). Suitably for Halloween, the song in question – “Hard Magic” – features some howling werewolf sound effects. And not one but two punk freak-outs by wacky German New Wave diva Nina Hagen: I’m on a one-man mission to have her reappraised as a genius unsung maverick post-punk outsider artist somewhere between a white Grace Jones and Klaus Nomi. (Trust me: this is a very lonely pursuit).

/ I was so busy sweatin' to the oldies behind the DJ booth all night I only managed to snatch a single photo all night - of Pal and Martin /Further reading: Did you know Lobotomy Room now has its own official Facebook page?Like and follow it if you dare!Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date here,here,here,here,here,here,here, here, here, here, here , here and here!